Fun google facts to start your day off with. Did you know that the nickname ‘City of Brotherly Love’ comes from the Greek roots of the city’s name itself? Compounding Philos or ‘loving’ with Adelphos or ‘brother’ is what brought that city’s well known mantra to be. Of course, I only tell you this because I’m sure Michael Vick can attest to Philadelphia being the city of anything but love over the last two years for him. Well and I wanted you to know I’m not just a pretty face. I’m learned, yo! But enough about my degree from Clown College, we’re here to talk about Michael Vick and what we should expect from him for 2013 fantasy football…

So in order to talk about Vick’s fantasy impact in 2013, we do have to discuss his contract and it’s particulars. Sorry, couldn’t be avoided. The contract includes $3.5 million for a signing bonus, $3.5 million base pay and then another $3 million in incentives. The incentives range from actually being on the roster out of camp ($500,000), to $1.5 million if he plays 90% of the regular season snaps, to $1 million if the Eagles win the Super Bowl. That’s $7 million guaranteed dollars even if he doesn’t play a snap this season. Now before you call out ‘bad contract’, realize the Chiefs own Matt Cassel and average paying him $10 million a year on his contract that was signed back in 2009. A lot of things have inflated between then and now. Kanye’s ego, Honey Boo Boo Child’s bank account but most certainly the almighty dollar. All this to say, this was a low-risk, high reward investment for both sides. If Vick is successful, he gets to renegotiate from a better standing than what he had coming into the 2013 season and if he fails, the Eagles get to walk away having spent relatively little to see if they can unwrap the enigma that is Michael’s potential. So what does all this mean for 2013 fantasy football, you ask? Simple: Michael Vick will be highly motivated. The last time we had a motivated Vick, he put on quite a show in only 12 games back in 2010. Now do I think he repeats those numbers? Eh, probably not. That 2010 season was quite dreamy and hard to repeat. However, Vick does now have a head coach who’s quite adept at utilizing athletic quarterbacks and the key thing to remember about Chip’s offense in college wasn’t the playcalling itself. The key was the speed of the game. More plays from scrimmage leads to more opportunities while wearing the opposing defense down. This Eagles offense is being given the opportunity to get more plays off from scrimmage than most other NFL teams and has the talent at the skill positions to make that feat possible and highly profitable.

So now that we’ve covered all those factoids, the fact remains that Vick isn’t even guaranteed the job out of camp and that’s a big rub right now in trying to estimate what he’ll bring to the table for fantasy owners this year. So my projections below come strictly from the mindset that Michael is the starter out of camp and remains the starter all year. But just in case he doesn’t, I’ve already given you my two cents about his back up Nick Foles. Overall, this is a sink or swim situation that we’ll know the answer to by the time the season starts so if you’re reading this in August and want to ridicule me, too bad…comments are closed snitches! But seriously, long term I think we see Foles as the Eagles QB by no later than 2014. This 2013 season will either be a gestation period for him to learn Chip’s offense or he’ll know it by heart and be the starter out of camp. How that shakes out all rests in the hands of Vick.

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Vick has always been a high risk/high reward type player the only difference this year is you won’t be spending a 4th or 5th round pick. It would be worth it on my opinion if he drops to the later rounds especially with the QB depth this year. Sadly it seems that Vick is highly motivated by money as seen when he got his opportunity in 2010. Still concerned with his loss of pure speed but think he can still be an effective Fantasy quarterback. I would really like to see the Eagles draft heavily at offensive line in the draft it would be nearly impossible to run an effective Chip Kelly offense with their current O Line situation.

@murph: Agree on all of the above. It’s funny, last year Reid started doing a lot of quick outs and screens for Foles which is basically what Oregon was known to do. Get the ball out to someone and let them squirt forward 3 or 4 yards. Make the defense play laterally rather than North/South. Even if the o-line doesn’t improve dramatically in terms of protection, these types of plays can effectively negate that type of pass rush if executed properly. It’ll be interesting to see if Vick is even starting out of the gate in Philly anyway. Foles is no slouch. I think we’re going to look back on this 2012 Rookie QB class as one of the better ones for a long time.

@Sky: Exactly, interested to see how this plays out and crazy to think that Vick could be a stepping stone for Foles as their play style is so different. I agree with last years draft class of quarterbacks and because of it I think a lot of teams will reach for guys like Geno, Nassib, and Manuel much earlier then they should. It says a lot about Kelly that he isn’t cleaning house and expecting to draft his way into a starting QB. Great article as always!

Yup RE: the draft. Gonna be some disappointed teams in a couple years. Really a defensive draft.

It’s true that Foles/Vick play on opposite ends of the QB spectrum. I guess I feel Chip has more Bellichick in him than others think. He can adapt to players and their skillset just as well as a player can step in to his needs.